Under Article 67 of the Basic Law, the Bundestag can remove a chancellor only by electing a successor at the same time, with an absolute majority. This is the constructive vote of no confidence. It answers the Weimar Constitution, which allowed parliament to bring down a government without electing a new one. The vote has been tried twice. In 1972, Rainer Barzel failed against Willy Brandt. Ten years later, Helmut Kohl replaced Helmut Schmidt.
Ninety Days of Oil
West Germany introduced compulsory oil stocks in 1966. Since 1978, the stocks have been held by the Erdölbevorratungsverband, the Petroleum Stockholding Association, a public body to which refiners and importers must belong. Section 3 of the Oil Stockholding Act requires it to hold stocks equal to at least 90 days of average daily net imports. The obligation was raised from 80 to 90 days in 1998. The members’ fees come to about 0.3 cents per liter of fuel or heating oil. The stocks have been released six times: in the Gulf crisis of 1990 to 1991, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, in the Libya crisis of 2011, during low water on the Rhine in 2018, in March 2022, at the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and in March 2026. That time, the federal government released 19.5 million barrels as part of a joint release by the International Energy Agency.
Early Warning by Law
Since 1 May 1998, Section 91 of the Stock Corporation Act has required the management board to take suitable measures. In particular, it must set up a monitoring system, damit den Fortbestand der Gesellschaft gefährdende Entwicklungen früh erkannt werden, so that developments that threaten the company’s survival are detected early. The rule came with the KonTraG, the law on control and transparency in business. Since 1 January 2021, the restructuring law StaRUG has set out the duty of early crisis detection in statute for the managers of all legal entities, whatever their legal form.
The Master Requirement, Removed and Restored
In 2004, Germany abolished the master requirement, the Meisterpflicht, for 53 crafts. Among tile layers, the number of businesses then rose from about 12,400 to more than 70,000. The number of apprentices fell by 67 percent. The association of turners said it had lost a complete generation of journeymen and masters.
On 14 February 2020, a new law came into force that restored the requirement for 12 of these crafts, among them tile layers, parquet layers, interior decorators and organ builders. The federal government said it was responding to falling numbers of apprentices and falling quality.
The Imperative of Responsibility
In Das Prinzip Verantwortung (The Imperative of Responsibility, 1979), the philosopher Hans Jonas proposed a new rule for an age of powerful technology: Handle so, dass die Wirkungen deiner Handlung verträglich sind mit der Permanenz echten menschlichen Lebens auf Erden. (Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life on earth.) Where the risks are uncertain, he asked for a Heuristik der Furcht, a heuristic of fear. That means to die schlechtere Prognose der besseren vorzuziehen, to give the worse forecast priority over the better one.
After Euro 2000
At the European Championship of 2000, the German national team went out in the group stage. The German Football Association responded with a plan for the long term. It expanded its talent program to 390 training centers for players aged eleven to seventeen. From 2001, youth academies were introduced in the Bundesliga, and from 2002 they were mandatory in the second division as well. Today every club in both leagues must run one to obtain its license. The academies were long seen as the origin of the golden generation that won the World Cup in 2014.
Recognized Rules of Technology
German construction contracts measure work against the allgemein anerkannte Regeln der Technik, the generally recognized rules of technology. Work counts as free of defects only if it has the agreed quality and follows these rules. A rule counts as recognized only when the great majority of technical experts hold it. It must also have proven itself in practice, not only in science: sich auch praktisch bewährt. For this reason, the standard takes up new methods late. A builder who departs from it carries the risk, because a departure is generally treated as a defect. A new building product with no recognized rule behind it needs a general approval from the German Institute for Building Technology before it may be used.
In November 2024, the federal cabinet approved a draft law for a Gebäudetyp E, a building type for simple and experimental building. Under the draft, in contracts between expert businesses, a departure from the recognized rules would no longer count as a defect under three conditions. It must be disclosed to the client before the work starts. The client must not object at once. And the building must remain safe and fit for use over time. A new government draft went to the Bundestag on 8 June 2026.
No Experiments
In the 1957 Bundestag election, the CDU campaigned with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer under the slogan Keine Experimente!, no experiments. The message was that a change of government would put at risk what West Germany had built since the war. On 15 September 1957, CDU and CSU won 50.2 percent of the vote and 269 of 497 seats. It is the only time in a Bundestag election that one party group has won an absolute majority of both votes and seats. The slogan was not new. The Center Party had already used it in 1932.
The Dike Master
Theodor Storm’s novella Der Schimmelreiter first appeared in April 1888. Hauke Haien becomes the Deichgraf, the official responsible for the dikes. The old dike is damaged. Ole Peters plays the danger down and the workers grumble. So Hauke does not carry out a full repair. With great pangs of conscience, he settles for patchwork. Later the dike breaks at exactly that spot. Hauke plunges with his horse into the raging water and cries: Herr Gott, nimm mich; verschon die andern! Lord God, take me, spare the others!
The precautionary principle
The precautionary principle is a German export. It arose as the Vorsorgeprinzip in German environmental law in the early 1970s and was written into the Federal Emission Protection Act of 15 March 1974.
It reached international law in 1987 at the North Sea conference, and was entrenched in 1992 as Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration, from where it passed into most international environmental conventions.
The principle holds that where serious or irreversible harm is possible, the absence of full scientific certainty is not a reason to wait.
Germany did not adopt an international norm about prevention. It wrote one and the world took it.